With the extremely warm and humid weather in our region, it’s vital to take good care of your skin and take steps to be “skin smart”. Here are a few quick tips on how you can be. Essentially, this can be thought of as the three Ss – Skin, Shape and Soft Tissue.
Skin
So how can you analyse your skin? Now I look at the skin in the following way:
Quality – This refers to skin hydration and dewiness, glow, and radiance. Here is where skinboosters work best. Our skin tends to be dull in this humidity, so improving your skin quality will set you apart from the rest.
Tone – This refers to skin pigmentation: reds and browns. Generally, such pigments can be improved with lasers. Prevention is better than cure, so staying away from the sun, using good SPF products and reapplying if you are staying outdoors will go a long way in protecting your skin.
Texture – This consists of pores and scars. Options include Skinboosters, chemical peels and fractional lasers. Pores open up in our hot and humid weather, while scars are usually the sequelae of angry acne outbreaks.
What can you do to improve your skin?
As everyone’s skin is different, I recommend a customised approach, combining skinboosters, lasers and chemical peels to address your skincare woes. Sun protection and good skincare to complement will be the foundation to having great skin.
The basis of all skincare is sun protection. Because ageing is a direct result of free radicals, and UV rays are the prime culprit here. Think of the SEA principle:
‘S’ stands for sun protection, and we look at this in terms of:
- Time: The sun is horrid between 10 and 4pm. So stay away!
- Cover: Use your brolly, hats, and sun glasses to full effect.
- SPF
‘E’ stands for exfoliation. Now, with sun damage, enviromental factors, our skin appears dull, no doubt from all the debris and dead skin. Uneven skin tones and textures make applying makeup difficult. Furthermore, pigmentation problems progress. Hence, there is a need for exfoliation.
‘A’ stands for antioxidants. And we all know how antioxidants mop up those nasty free radicals and keep your skin healthy and glowing. Generally, I say, drink green tea every day. Green tea has a high concentration of antioxidants. In addition, consider taking some oral capsules to give your skin the added boost. Currently, Heliocare white radiance and Crystal Tomato are the rage.
Shape
A beautiful face has beautiful curves. Various minimally invasive treatments can be used to harmonise your shape, and add character to your face. To harmonise your face, you can first decide if you want to restore, or enhance your features. Next, find a physician with a keen eye for beauty. In essence, this can be achieved through the use of fillers, botox, threads, Ulthera, Thermage etc.
Soft Tissue
The goal here is to correct and enhance your features to acheive a younger and more refreshed you. What can you do to correct soft tissue loss and sagginess? For sagginess , treatment involves non-invasive skin lifting with Ulthera and Thermage, or more invasively with Threadlifts.
For volume loss, skin folds, treatment involves the careful use of fillers, placing them at strategic locations will pump up your features in the right places.
And as for dynamic lines, treatment involves the use of botox to soften and bring your face to a relaxed state. The ‘no lines’ image results in a frozen look, which is not in vogue.
